The Half-Child (6 page)

If that wasn't enough to put her off, Jayne once had a fling with the head barman.

Kate was keen and if pseudo-Celtic was what appealed, then Jayne figured the charms of Bangkok's unique and quirky bars would probably be lost on her. She led the way to the pub and winced as she opened the door on a group of pink-faced men and women drunkenly singing along to U2's ‘Sunday bloody Sunday'. She gestured across the room, away from the crowd.

‘I'll get us a table if you go to the bar.'

‘What do you want to drink?'

‘Whatever you're having.'

Jayne slipped into a corner booth and sat with her back to the crowd in an effort to block them out. The green vinyl of the bench seat matched the sickly colour of the carpet and a mural of maniacal-looking leprechauns stared down at her from the opposite wall. The coasters on the table said ‘Guinness is good for you'. She lit a cigarette in an effort to mask the smell of spilt beer and urine and had smoked it down to the butt by the time Kate reappeared with a pint in each hand. Jayne stared at the vase of watery lager in front of her and made a note to be more specific with her drinks order.

They made small talk over the first round, sharing cigarettes and travel stories. Jayne bought a second round, another pint for Kate and a bottle of Heineken for herself.

She had Kate pegged for a drink-too-much-and-tell-all kind of girl and she did not disappoint.

‘It's not like I want to work specifically for a Christian organisation,' Kate said, setting a third round on the table and raising her voice over the crowd noise. ‘I mean, I believe in God and all that, but I don't go to church. I just want to get some experience, you know, to work in international aid.'

‘It must be a tough area to get into,' Jayne said, trying to sound sympathetic.

‘I reckon.' Kate gulped her beer. ‘I mean, you can't get a job unless you've got overseas experience, but how do you get overseas experience when you can't get a job?'

Jayne saw a chance to steer the conversation towards Maryanne Delbeck. ‘I suppose that's where volunteering comes in.'

‘Huh?'

‘People volunteer to work overseas as a stepping-stone to a career in international development.'

‘I suppose,' Kate paused to light another cigarette, ‘though it doesn't always work that way.'

‘What do you mean?'

‘We've never sent a single woman to South America who hasn't come back married or pregnant or both.' Kate giggled.

‘I'm putting up my hand for the next available posting.'

Jayne forced a smile and tried again. ‘How tough is it to get a posting? I mean, do you have to pass some sort of test?'

‘Not really. There's an orientation process that everyone has to go through, and a medical.'

‘Police check?'

‘Rarely. Most host organisations don't require it.'

‘So you do the orientation and the medical. Then what happens?'

‘You get offered a placement.'

‘What if the applicant is not up to scratch?'

‘Like what? Crazy or something?'

‘Not even crazy. Just inappropriate. What then?'

‘Well, if they were really bad, we'd probably just string them along, not offer them anything until they got sick of waiting and tried somewhere else,' Kate said.

‘Okay.' Jayne kept her expression neutral. ‘What if there's a problem with a volunteer during a placement?'

Kate shrugged. ‘YCV's attitude is you either sink or swim. It's part of the cultural immersion experience.'

She must have realised how trite that sounded because she hastened to add, ‘YCV doesn't believe in micro-managing relationships. Our job is to match the skills of the volunteer with the needs of the host community. After that, it's up to the respective parties to make things work between them.

They're all adults.'

‘If someone was having problems would YCV be aware of it?'

‘It depends. We'd rely on the volunteer or their host to bring it to our attention.'

‘Did Maryanne Delbeck bring anything to your attention?'

Kate seemed surprised at the mention of Maryanne's name. She shook her head.

‘What about her hosts?'

‘Only after the…I mean, after she…'

‘After the alleged suicide,' Jayne offered.

Kate nodded. The topic of conversation seemed to be sobering her up.

‘Maryanne's father has asked me to look into the circumstances of her death,' Jayne said.

‘Oh?'

Again, her surprise seemed genuine.

‘Did you know Maryanne well?'

‘I met her a couple of times during her orientation,' Kate said. ‘She was a nice person. I was very sorry when she… when she died.'

‘Were you surprised?'

‘Yes.' Kate swirled the dregs of her beer around in the bottom of her glass and spoke as if she were thinking out loud. ‘I
was
surprised. Maryanne didn't seem like the type who'd…'

She paused, flustered, caught saying something she shouldn't.

‘I'm speaking from a personal perspective of course,' she said. ‘I'm not qualified to comment.'

She drained the last of her beer and placed the empty pint on the table.

‘I'm sure Maryanne's father has his reasons, but YCV has nothing to add to what we've already told the Pattaya police and the Australian Embassy.'

‘So you're not interested in anything I might turn up?'

‘Frankly, I'm going back to three progress reports, two funding applications and a new round of placements for Thailand and Vietnam.'

‘Then I'd better not keep you.'

Jayne stood to leave, put her cigarettes into the pocket of her jacket, when a voice behind her said, ‘I taught I recognised dose black curls.'

She turned around.

‘Hello Declan. How are you? How's Noi?'

‘Noi?'

‘You know, Thai girl, barely legal—remember?'

Declan grinned. His eyes were amber, but not in an attractive way. As if his skull was full of beer.

‘Ach, I was sooch a fool!'

‘I won't argue with you there.'

‘Aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?' Kate interrupted them, her own bleary eyes locking on Declan's.

‘Sure,' Jayne said. ‘Kate, this is Declan. Declan this is Kate.'

Jayne inched away as she spoke.

‘Kate, I know more about Declan than I wish I did, and Declan, I know less about Kate than I'd like to. But enough about me.'

Neither of them looked at her as she backed out the door.

5

P
eople went to Ekamai only to leave it. Bangkok's Eastern Bus Terminal was a maze of ticket windows, shelters and numbered docking bays, where dozens of buses idled with engines rumbling, air noxious with the smell of diesel fuel and rotting fruit. Despite the diligent cleaning ladies whose grass brooms whisked away litter beneath the feet of thousands of travellers each day, a layer of grime covered every surface, a miasma of dirt hung in the air. Sad-eyed children holding paper cups wandered among the crowds gesturing for food, while their quicker-fingered compatriots filched unguarded purses and wallets. Poor families huddled around red, white and blue striped bags that contained cheap plastic goods, paid for with their life savings, which unscrupulous traders convinced them would sell for a huge profit in their village back home. Flustered tourists rushed from one dock to another in search of their departure point, anxiety mounting at each dead-end. It didn't help that they kept asking people at random for help. Loath to disappoint, the Thais would rather give wrong directions than none at all.

Jayne took pity on a German couple and escorted them to their bus to Rayong, before making her way to the Pattaya berth. On Jim Delbeck's allowance she could have hired a taxi for the trip, but figured she'd try to make some money out of this job.

The frigid temperature inside the bus overcompensated for the humidity of the depot. Jayne chose a window seat towards the middle, took out a jacket and stowed her backpack in the overhead luggage compartment. Her ticket promised on-board entertainment and as the bus pulled out, a video started up on a television mounted above the driver's seat. An American action movie with Thai subtitles. The soundtrack was indecipherable, though that didn't stop the driver from turning up the volume. Jayne tuned out to the din—a skill she'd honed living in Bangkok—and turned her attention to the report into Maryanne Delbeck's death.

According to the Pattaya police, Maryanne's body was found at the foot of the Bayview Hotel's White Wing in the early hours of the morning of Monday 30 September 1996. She appeared to have fallen fourteen storeys from the rooftop terrace to the lawn of the hotel garden. The police were called by the hotel night guard who'd come across the body during a routine inspection. The guard had not seen the accident take place, nor heard anything other than what he thought was a peacock's cry; the exotic birds wandered the gardens of a nearby resort. The report noted for the record that he was a former soldier with a spotless record. Death was confirmed by the police medical officer at the scene, the corpse identified by the hotel receptionist. Maryanne had been staying on the premises for three months. The deceased's room was subsequently cordoned off. Police found nothing there other than personal effects.

The Scientific Crime Detection Division found no evidence of foul play at the scene. There was a swimming pool on the rooftop terrace, but there was nothing to suggest Maryanne had been in or near the pool prior to her death.

The safety barrier surrounding the rooftop area—a metrehigh wall of painted concrete and iron—was undamaged, and it was not possible to say whether she'd climbed, fallen or been pushed over it based on traces of paint on her feet and clothes.

The rooftop bar was closed for service after ten o'clock at night, though the terrace remained accessible via the main elevator and a goods lift. Estimated time of death was around one in the morning. Police interviewed hotel staff, but no one noticed the lift ascending to the rooftop at that late hour. Nor did they see anything suspicious on the night.

The autopsy report outlined multiple skull and spinal fractures and internal organ damage, and concluded ‘the deceased's injuries are consistent with a fall from a height commensurate with the fourteen storey building at the base of which the body was found. Death was most likely instantaneous.'

That thought gave Jayne some comfort as she skimmed through the photographs of Maryanne's broken and bloodied body. She'd landed on her back. Her hands were raised at either side of her face, a sleeping child pose at odds with the pool of blood at the back of her head and the violent twist of her legs. She wore simple cotton pants and a T-shirt and her feet were bare.

The daily newspapers in Thailand were filled with gruesome images like these, ostensibly to remind all good Buddhists of the impermanence of the flesh. However, it felt voyeuristic to Jayne. She put the photos back in their envelope and returned to the report.

With the physical evidence inconclusive and in the absence of a note or confession, the finding of suicide appeared to have hinged on the testimony of Maryanne Delbeck's colleagues at the New Life Children's Centre where she'd worked as a volunteer. The centre was an orphanage for babies and children who'd been abandoned, relinquished, or admitted into care by families who couldn't afford to keep them. Children eligible for inter-country adoption were housed in their own facility and foreign volunteers engaged to acclimatise them to being around Westerners before their adoptive families arrived to claim them. Maryanne had been assigned to two babies, the first adopted out two months before her death, the second due to be adopted out the week after.

Maryanne's colleagues said she'd seemed unwell in the weeks leading up to her death. Fellow volunteers said she'd complained of headaches and seemed tired all the time. One described her as ‘distracted'. Frank Harding, the centre's resident foreign adviser, said Maryanne had become ‘increasingly tense and depressed' during her five months in Thailand. He speculated ‘she was unable to cope with the level of human despair and degradation she witnessed day-to-day during her placement in Pattaya.'

The crucial testimony came from Doctor Somsri Kaysorn, the specialist medical consultant to the centre.

Unbeknownst to either her family or colleagues, Maryanne had regular appointments with Doctor Somsri at his private practice for more than two months prior to her death.

Doctor Somsri had diagnosed clinical depression, prescribed antidepressants and conducted therapeutic counselling.

The autopsy found no traces of drugs of any kind in Maryanne's bloodstream. When asked about this, Doctor Somsri maintained that had she taken the prescribed medication, Maryanne's suicidal impulses would have been kept in check.

Jayne flicked back to the autopsy report and noted there was no trace of alcohol in Maryanne's bloodstream either.

Nothing. Not even paracetamol for the headaches.

She looked up from her reading and gazed through the tinted window of the bus. There was little countryside between Bangkok and Pattaya, the urban sprawl of the city extended into the new estates and industrial zones all the way to the coast. The highway was thick with fast moving traffic. Ahead of the bus in the adjacent lane was a utility truck loaded with hessian sacks of rice that bulged over the sides of the tray like a paunch overhanging a pair of tight jeans. A motorcyclist tailed the truck, helmet on his handlebars, baseball cap on his head. Other than the odd, amusing use of English—a condominium called ‘Happy World', the ‘Nanny Pink' fashion boutique, the ‘Life Style Shop' selling pedestal toilets—there wasn't much to look at.

Not Thailand at its finest.

The other finding of note in the police report was that only a few days before her death, Maryanne had emptied her Thai bank account, withdrawing the equivalent of around three thousand Australian dollars. Bank statements appended to the report showed a history of regular deposits into the account: small amounts in fortnightly payments suggesting a volunteer stipend; larger monthly instalments sent by international transfer, which increased over time and probably came from Jim Delbeck. There was no way of knowing what Maryanne had done with the money, though the chief investigating officer concluded her actions supported the suicide theory ‘as the deceased probably felt she had no further use for the funds'. It struck Jayne that if this were the case, Maryanne would have closed the account altogether. Or was she too suicidal to bother with such banal tasks?